The 89-year-old, named only as Anne, complained that people were becoming
'robots' before travelling to Dignitas in Switzerland

A retired art teacher committed suicide at the Dignitas clinic because she was frustrated at the lack of interaction in modern life, because of our reliance on computers and the Internet.

The 89-year-old, who asked only to be identified as Anne before her death, was frustrated with the trappings of modern life, including fast food, consumerism and the amount of time people spend watching television.

Anne, a former electrician with the Royal Navy, was not terminally ill or seriously handicapped and travelled to Dignitas in Switzerland last month.

Before her death she told the Sunday Times: “People are becoming more and more remote … We are becoming robots. It is this lack of humanity.”

She described the modern age as “cutting corners” and said she could not adapt to it, as she felt all the traditional ways of doing things had disappeared.

Anne, of Sussex, had suffered with heart and lung disease in recent years and was concerned her condition could worsen, leaving her in a nursing home or enduring a lengthy hospital stay.

In her request to the clinic she said her lack of energy and declining health left her with “a life with no enviable future.”

Anne took a lethal dose of barbiturates at the clinic, with her niece Linda, 54 at her side.

She said: “Unless you die in your sleep, beside the person you love, or in their arms, I cannot think of a better death.”

She said both she and her aunt supported calls to make assisted suicide legal in Britain.

Michael Irwin, a retired doctor who helped Anne with her application to Dignitas, said that her main regret was that she had to travel abroad to end her life, when she felt it was restricted and she had achieved her aims.

The Assisted Dying Bill, put forward by Lord Falconer, proposes changing legislation so two doctors could prescribe a lethal dose of drugs to someone who has less than six months to live. This would not have applied in the case of Anne, but has reignited the debate about assisted dying.